December 30, 2021 - 6:06am
Toasted Buckwheat Porridge Sourdough Bread
A lovely recipe by Melissa over at Breadtopia.
https://breadtopia.com/toasted-buckwheat-porridge-sourdough-bread/
Here is my bake in more detail.
A lovely delicious bread that toasts up a treat.
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Great colour and crumb! So whole groats in there? Must be an interesting texture and flavour.
I made some toasted buckwheat (30%) sourdough English muffins recently. Great flavour though transferring the proofed doughs to the griddle was a trick.
Very happy with how this turned out. Whole groats dry roasted in a pan. Flavour is wonderful and when toasted it's even better.
If you follow the recipe exactly and drain the groats I imagine the crumb is more bread like. However if you keep the water the groats have been soaking in the texture is closer to an English Muffin or Crumpet.
I'm tempted to try a borodinsky using buckwheat flour to see what would happen. Have you used any spices? I'm wondering which might work well in it.
While I haven't tried this I would think the best approach would be whole buckwheat groats, soaked in water until the gel forms and then blended to form a thick paste or if you're keeping them whole then just don't drain the water. I would think if you take rye, which has very poor gluten, and then add in a high percentage of buckwheat flour (which has no gelling qualities) then the resulting bread will be very crumbly. But if you get the groats to gel first it'll make a nice textured loaf. As for spices or add-ins this may sound crazy but why not dried or caramelised onions? Very far away from a Borodinsky by now but may make a lovely rye and buckwheat loaf.
I've done a lot of buckwheat loaves, either 100% or a large percentage, and the difference between flour and whole groats is huge. Using the gel from whole groats makes a far better textured loaf. Don't think toasted groats gel as well but in this loaf the bread flour works well and the groats stay whole. But to get buckwheat flour by soaking raw buckwheat and then processing it into a paste using the gel as binder works perfectly.
Thanks for the tips. I've seen groats for a decent price at the local Chinese market so I might pick some up.
Your point about gel and a groat/rye mix is well-taken.
Looks like a great bake, and sounds like it is quite tasty. I love the add ins...always more interesting to eat. I'll have to bookmark this one!
It is a lovely recipe. Toasted buckwheat has such great flavour. I'm sure you'll like it.
Very inviting loaf Abe, and I love seeing the groat inclusions in the crumb! I've been debating on when I would do another buckwheat bake and seeing this loaf definitely pushes me in that direction.
And toasting the buckwheat groats first brings out extra flavour. If you do decide to try it i'm sure you'll enjoy it. It's a lovely recipe.
I just made this loaf and I have to say that it doesn't look anything like your's. My dough was really wet and the loaf that came out of my clay baker is only about 2 1/2 inches high. I am thinking that I let the groats soak too long, more like an hour and a half. It is cooling now so I hope the flavor is good enough to try again. Any ideas?
a similar recipe: Toasted buckwheat porridge ! Not sure why yours ended up so flat. Maybe overproofed. My dough moved pretty fast so that might be a reason why.
Was the dough too wet from the start? In which case yo need less water. Always hold back water at first as it can be added later if need be. If your dough starter off ok and then became too wet then probably over fermentation.
Is you clay baker like a loaf pan or is the dough still "freestanding" inside the clay baker. When a dough looks like it'll need help with rising then always a good idea to switch to a loaf pan where it has more support.
See what it tastes like and then we can think about what to do when yo try again. Always a possibility you made a mistake in the measurements.
Dough didn't seem too wet from the start. Calculated a 75% hydration which should be fine. Was making sourdough pizza dough at same time so I may have screwed up. I soaked the groats before I started the dough and probably left them soaking too long. Perhaps an hour and a half and then drained them and let them sit. That seems to be when things went wrong. Seemed OK while proofing and rose 50% but when I took it out to shape it was a watery mess. Put it in proofing basket and it did pretty much nothing. I use a Romertopf clay baker which I use for most of my breads. The bread that I make the most is the no knead sourdough from Breadtopia and it always seems to be fine unless I get tired of the whole wheat and go all white in which case I have to reduce the water. I also tend to keep my starter on the dry side and it works for that bread so I doubt that it would be a factor in the Buckwheat Porridge bread. Loaf had no oven spring and the crumb was obviously wet, in fact wouldn't brown in toaster. Decent flavor though. Getting ready to start another loaf and will report back if there are any problems.
That may also point to over fermentation. You can always go lower hydration just in case you didn't drain the groats properly. Hold some water back which can be added late if need be.
Hope it goes better this time. It really is a lovely bread. Best of luck.